Number 21 – Maine Marathon, Portland, Maine
Working in Hartford these days made it an easy trip to Portland. My sister lives nearby in New York and joined me for the event. We had a great trip over to the Old Port section of Portland. It is an ideal place to stay, enjoy the seaport experience, shops and relatively close to the race start and finish.
It was a beautiful fall day with a clear sky and race time temperature about 40 degrees. The race is run on an out and back course, up to Falmouth and return. The first/last five miles are relatively flat with a few good hills around 10 and 17. They closed one of the primary roads in the area which provided a wide open track for everyone. About half the entrants ran the half marathon so the course was quite open for those going the distance. Not too many unusually dressed runners except for three who were wearing mullet wigs with signs on the their shirts that said the main, Maine, mane event.
I always wait to sign up for a marathon until the last opportunity in case I get injured. Well, shortly after signing up for Maine I took a hard fall from stepping on a black walnut. Sounds odd, but the walnuts with cover can be almost the size of a tennis ball. I suffered a grade II sprain. The fall was likely partly due to new shoes that have a slightly higher heel. This situation was causing some hip pain before the fall, afterward things got much worse. Refusing to succumb to an injury I resumed my normal plans. The following day I was on my feet all day, flew to my work location Sunday night and worked the full week before returning home. Things deteriorated during the week with increased swell and internal bleeding within my entire foot. When I got home, I spent the weekend with my leg up and iced all weekend. The following week things starting getting better, and I was able to resume running. Compensating for my ankle, I began having hamstring and additional hip pain, which did not go away. Warming up on race day was uncomfortable, but doable with the help of Aleeve. My sister and I scoped out the course the day before, locating a good position for her to provide support and worst case provide a sag wagon for me. Fortunately, I was able to manage the pain with the help of drugs and friends back home praying for me.
The course was enjoyable, running along the shoreline from downtown Portland to Yarmouth. Even though I tried to run most of the tangents, my new Garmin GPS watch recorded 26.35 miles instead of 26.2. Oh well, it did give me an accurate reading of my pace which stayed in the 9-10 minute mile range. I ran with a couple of “50 staters”, one of whom was running his fiftieth this day. I celebrated by 21st with a lobster dinner and started dreaming about the next event – Phoenix in January with my younger son.